Scientific Truths
by DragonKatGal
Summary: *Complete* A possibility of Kara’s connection to Leoben and to the Cylon collective. One-shot. SPOILERS for Season Four.


Scientific Truths

DISCLAIMER: Not mine.

SETTINGS: S04E01. Kara's return.

NOTES: Mild spoilers.

A possibility of Kara's connection to Leoben and to the Cylon collective.

This is a one-shot. I have no intention of continuing it.

ONWARDS:

Admiral Bill Adama sat silently, his chest aching. For the first hour, he'd thought he might have been having a heart attack. At his age, he needed to watch for the symptoms, but the circumstances lately were fairly extenuating.

Kara Thrace, the 'daughter' he'd loved and lost only two months ago, had stepped out of her frakking viper, with that godsbedamned smug grin of hers, and proclaimed she knew the way to Earth.

Despite the fact that Adama had watched every piece of equipment in the CIC show her Viper explode two months ago. Despite the fact that they'd had a funeral service that had been one of the best-attended in months. Despite the fact that nothing had felt right since they'd lost her. Despite the fact that he'd thrown his model ship to the ground in a fit of anger and grief and sheer despair.

And now she was back with a map to Earth in her head.

Everything since the end of the worlds was pointing to one thing. Kara Thrace was a cylon. Always had been, always would be.

Adama didn't want to think that. At all. This was the woman his younger son had been engaged to. This was the woman his older son was still infatuated with. This was the woman who'd sent him a card, telling him that he was like a father to her.

Cylon tricks? Kara _had_ played a hand in Zak Adama's death four years earlier. Had it been the plan the whole time. Weaken the Adama's by tearing their family apart. Because wherever Kara Thrace went, disaster seemed to follow.

The Admiral sighed and checked his watch. Three hours. She'd been back for twelve hours, and he still couldn't bring himself to speak to her. It?

A sudden thumping on the outer hatch of his quarters disrupted his thoughts. "Come in."

He wasn't surprised to see Doctor Jack Cottle walk in, his scowl and ever-present impatience following him easily. Cottle sat gratefully in the seat opposite the Admiral and threw down a folder of papers to the low table between them.

"Tell me," Adama said quietly.

"Good news or bad news?" Cottle asked.

Adama didn't know what to say. "Is she a Cylon?"

"Nope," Cottle replied. "Annoying and stubborn, but not a Cylon."

Bill sighed with relief. "Thanks the gods."

"I thought you didn't believe in them," Cottle frowned.

"I might need to start if she really is Kara Thrace back from the dead," Adama replied.

Cottle reached forward, and opened the folder he'd previously thrown.

"Well, she is Kara Thrace, that's not the problem," Cottle began.

Adama's eyes narrowed. "So what is the problem?"

Cottle flipped through the various results that had come back from the tests he'd performed on the previously deceased-Captain. One in particular was something he knew that the Admiral was not going to like.

"One of my newer techs ran Thrace's DNA through our computers. He accidentally hit 'full search' instead of 'single match', which is why the results took so frakking long. We got a full match to her own DNA, and a partial match from someone else," Cottle said.

"Partial? Explain."

Cottle sighed and wished that his commanding officer had a medical degree.

"As in the DNA match was close enough that it could only be her brother or her father."

"Why is this bad news?" Adama asked nervously.

"Because the man it matched partially to..._is_ a Cylon. We entered Leoben Conoy's DNA into our system after the autopsy on the body we took from Ragnar Anchorage. I ran the test again, and it is accurate."

Adama felt the tightness in his chest returning. Leoben Conoy. Gods.

"You're saying...Kara is the daughter of a Cylon?" Adama tried to clarify.

Cottle nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying. How or why, I have no idea, but she is. The Leoben model, one of them at least, is her biological father. Which makes me wonder if there are other human-cylon children we should know about."

The idea had never really occurred to the Admiral. He knew about Hera, Athena and Helo's human-cylon child, but he'd never stopped to wonder if Hera was the first.

He stood abruptly and moved to his comm. system.

"Lieutenant Agathon, report to the Admiral's office. Lieutenant Agathon to the Admiral's office."

"You think Athena knew about this?" Cottle asked.

Adama shook his head. "No I don't. I don't think she had any idea."

Less than five minutes later, Lieutenant Sharon 'Athena' Agathon, Colonial Officer and former Cylon reported to the Admiral's office, saluting the Admiral and taking a seat beside Cottle.

"Is Hera the first?" Adama asked.

Athena's eyes widened. "Sir?"

"Is Hera the first human-Cylon child to be born?" Adama tried again.

Athena nodded slowly. "As far as I'm aware, yes sir. It's why the Cylons wanted her so badly. She's the next evolutionary step for them. A child born from a cylon...it just hadn't happened before."

Adama noted the way Athena said 'them' so naturally. She wasn't one of 'them' anymore, and hadn't been in months.

"Is it possible that you're mistaken?" Adama asked.

Athena shook her head. "Believe me sir, any child born from a Cylon before now would have been big news. The Cylons believe that Hera is some type of...miracle. If a child had been born from a Cylon before now, there's no way they'd have left it alone."

"Even if the father had been Cylon?" Cottle asked. "Possibly a sleeper agent? Would the Cylons have known then?"

Athen nodded. "They would have. Sleeper Agents are part of the collective conscious. It's a fairly limited flow of data, but still part of the whole. The Cylons collect what information they can, and send programming to the sleepers. Even if a sleeper Cylon managed to father a child, the collective would know."

"Assuming that the father knew," Adama mused softly.

Athena glanced at him in confusion. The conversation had taken a turn from being what she'd thought of as hypothetical to something far more serious. The timing of the questioning wasn't coincidental either, which could only mean one thing...

"This is about Starbuck, isn't it?" Athena asked.

Adama glanced at her sharply. The former Cylon looked at him in all innocence.

"She's been back for a few hours now, I'm surprised no one came to see me earlier, to ask if she was Cylon. To the best of my knowledge she isn't. We can feel other Cylons close by, and Starbuck's never felt like a Cylon to me. Then again, there are still five models that we know nothing about, so...who knows if I'd be able to tell properly."

"She's not a Cylon," Cottle broke in. "But Leoben's DNA came back as a close enough match to be her father."

Athena was stunned. "Leoben?"

Adama nodded. "It would certainly explain a few things about why he's been so obsessed with her. He knew things about her that he had no right knowing. Things that Starbuck had never told anyone before. And he knew."

The former Cylon took a shaky breath, looking over every interaction she'd had with both Leoben and Kara, wondering if she should have picked up on the nature of the relationship. She'd thought it had been entirely different.

"If that's true...it could explain why the seven models are so obsessed with her. Why they think she has a destiny. Every Cylon model agreed that Hera was special. If Kara is a human-born cylon child then...everything changes."

"So you didn't know about this?" Adama asked.

"I swear to you, sir, I swear on Hera's life, I had no idea that Leoben was Kara's father."

Adama was silent for a moment, before he nodded his belief. Athena sighed softly, relieved that his trust in her hadn't diminished. She'd worked too hard to gain it back.

"So what happens now?" Adama asked. "Kara's not completely human...she's claiming to know the way to earth. Should we just believe that?"

Athena closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on something that only she could see. Her eyelids moved rapidly, as though she was reading with her eyes closed. Adama watched in silence, and Cottle twitched impatiently.

Athena's eyes snapped open, and she looked to the Admiral.

"I don't know if you should or not...but the Cylons know she's back. They know we thought she was dead, they thought so too. They know that she has a destiny, but they don't know what. Leoben hasn't shared his thoughts about why Kara is so important. They just know that she is, and they want her."

"Are you saying that she may actually know how to get to Earth?" Adama asked.

"I'm saying that we shouldn't discount the possibility. We can't let the Cylons get their hands on her. If she knows the way to Earth..." Athena trailed off, letting Adama's imagination fill in the rest.

It had been his mission to keep the Cylons away from the Colonies. Failing that, he could at least keep the Cylons away from the Thirteenth Tribe. Keeping them away from kara Thrace should at least be a slightly easier task than eliminating the Cylon threat completely.

"So the Cylons believe that she knows where Earth is," Adama said.

"They do. Which makes me think that she's not lying. The Cylons don't believe things on a whim. They're logical and thorough. They believe in Kara Thrace, and they believe she knows about Earth," Athena said.

"And if the Cylons believe it...we should too. Alright. Kara says she knows the way...let's test that theory."

END

(Yes, it is the end. No there's no more. It's a theory of why Leoben is so obsessed with Kara, and why she's so important. Anyway...just thought I'd throw the idea out there.)


End file.
